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Infinite BS
Sitemap --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- BioShock Infinite --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- * See also Gianormous_Infinite_BS * see also Infinite_Gratuitous_Violence * see also PLAYER_COMMENTS_ABOUT_BIOSHOCK_INFINITE * see also Infinite_Stupidity * see also Columbia Construction * see also Columbia Asylum * see also Columbia's Doom * see also Industrial Revolution BS * see also Burial at Sea The makers of Infinite BS should have simply gone the Fantasy route instead of trying to constantly fail at explaining their technical/mechanical fakery. It would have resulted in a BETTER GAME, which is mainly what the Players really care about, once the eyecandy gets old. --- --- --- --- --- Theme Changing Twisted The Game Setting into Crap : The promotional "Infinite Revolutions" for Infinite BS attempted to utilize a Class Warfare theme, and then created a 'revolutionary element' in Columbia's population - neither which really fit in the final game because of Police State Columbia and Economy of a Small Town. --- Infinite BS Schizophrenic Themes : * Modern/Future vs Old * Religious vs Secular * Industrial Monstrosity vs Small Town Mainstreet * Capitalism vs Progressivism * Big Business vs Small Business * Order vs Anarchy * Urban vs Rural * Reactionary Vs Futuristic (for its time .. Retrofuturistic to us) * Rich vs Poor (sections appear purpose-built as slums?) * Bigoted vs Self-interested Prejudice * Holy vs Profane * Historic Vs Fictional * Freakish Amusement Park vs Ordinary/Mundane * American Exceptualism vs Gamewriters Ignorant Fantasy * Murderous Right vs Murderous Left * Good vs Evil * Technology vs Spirits/Mysticism * Minority vs Majority * Science vs Belief * Immigrant vs Citizen * America Vs Confederacy * Story vs Gunfight Slaughterfest * Interactive vs Cutscene Columbia is too mixed up a place (even with it being built in 2 phases/eras - exposition show city and cultist Eden). Commentators mention that its too much a scatalogical hodge-podge of themes for a properly cohesive story. --- --- --- Faux-Historonicisms : Ken Levine: Claims to be "a student of American history". Oh, really ? That doesn't speak well for American Schools. If I was him, I would ask for a refund on that education. Part of the Sales Hype ? Claiming THAT when the whole 'historic' aspect of 'Columbia' and the Plot and the Characters is such an incohesive boondoggle ?? The problem is : You cannot honestly just shove so many odd pieces together and call it historic. Saying something is 'like' America is fine, but then demonstrating that it isn't is a bit of a swindle. Perhaps most Players with a recent Public education can't tell, and many others don't care, but the fakery is still fakery. --- --- --- Infinite BS Was "A Shaggy Dog Story" (a buildup with little result) : It had the NOTHING result that made everything the Player did 'matter not a whit', and had magic bullshit flow out to magically solve everything (or undid everything so it could all happen again/or never happen/or so some crazy 'dimension god' weirdness could happen). There initially maybe WAS planning for there to be some minor (player) 'choice' element for the game, but that apparently was scrapped (so you could thus go on unimpaired/undiverted to Burial At Sea's Rapture, where it was polluted with the same Infinite Quantum Bullshit). --- --- --- If You Are Doing Anachronisms, At Least Do Them Properly : Contrary Example - That Demented Vox-O-Phone Object : Consider that record disks of that (and a somewhat later) era were made of Shellac (and broke quite easily, and that stupid design's disk edge sticking out (if even made of a better material like Vinyl) just begs for destructive performance art (and lots of sales of replacements going into Fink's pocket ...) Hardly something to be carried around -- either with its fragility or its gianourmous size. So if you are gonna have this portable thingee in the game, why not make it a more future-stolen shaped thing -- a Recording Gun !!! *OR* A 'Voice Absorbing Gem' !!!). OR "for familiarity", the Edison recording cylinder shape of that era (likely Marketed in that shape so not to upset the population with too many strange/weird looking things - remember recordings on that kind of cylindrical media go back to the 1880's). Having a number of 'Tourist' recordings (archaic media format) from the original Show City "Columbia" (Pre-Comstock Tyranny) might have been imaginative backstory. - Even for Rapture's "personal recording" - the Accu-Vox - That thing had a brick-like/bulky size of a cassette tape recorder itself (and doing ONLY ONE recording ...) - it was a quite bad-weird/unwieldy/illogical. It should have just been a cassette tape/disk to actually be what it was advertised as (recorder/player sold separately !!) The idea I guess was to have it be 'self-contained', but for the game was HUGELY big, so to NOT be missed by the Players (but could have been a fraction of that size, it having a bright glowey neon-sign effect pointing to every one of them, which you could easily spot from 100 feet away). ---- Columbia as seen in the game IS a POLICE STATE, far beyond an East German Commie's wet dreams. You throw a rock at a Policeman, you get shot at. After they kill you in a hail of bullets, they then string up your family to teach 'your type' the lesson that resistance to Authority is not allowed in Columbia. A mob? Then just more targets to gun down. The 'Vox' would be ALWAYS cringing in their holes worried the Police are outside the door, and that they have been 'fingered' by an informant (likely the person right next to them). The writers of this game seem pretty clueless about how the real world operates (yet spewed all that crap about "THIS" being 'America' ). First - Padding doesn't stop bullets, (look at American WW1 uniforms to see something realistic). Apparently the 'Vox' had LOTS of guns (quite implausibly) thanks to that far too contrived storyline required by the out-dated/limited game playing style. Second - Encumbered police can't use their physical training to react to typically lightly-encumbered opponents running about in the city. (Well, this game had no improvement in enemy Maneuverability/tactics from games 15 years ago). (( '' Actually, Kenny&Co for their ignorance should be forced to wear burdensome and encumbering outfits like these (and be made to RUN around in them poked by cattle prods) for a Month to teach them how stupid their 'artistic' laziness is. '' )) ---- Little to do with 'Bio' anything, more to do with appropriating a branding to make money. ---- "Columbia A Modern Day Icarus" implied Columbia very obviously crashed and burned (symbolic like the Hindenburg). --- --- --- There are Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Shitty Hack Writer Lame-ass Lies ... ' : When it came to foisting/forcing a Dystopia on the BioShock Players, the writers were of that latter bent. The Original Rapture games had more than a little of those problems, but FOR Infinite BS the Bullshit Went Into Full Gear. Poor writing is one thing, but poor writing combined with a mediocre-to-lame combat game is unforgivable. ---- '''Infinite Contrivance (Just "Cuz") ' : Booker gets religion (apparently one of favorite Levine's digs, with his incredibly absurd anti-historical version of American religion/"Christianity" ?), and Booker somehow suddenly (all in 3 years ?) becomes a powerful racist despot/cult leader, -OR- is Booker/Comstock instead being a major-league charlatan (flim-flaming down South to them inbred 'rednecks'), who began to believe his own scam (OR maybe it was all just done with Hypnosis ...)? It (too many unlikely things) all seems to happen just too fast, Booker going from the (unlikely, much too young) soldier fresh from a nice military massacre (which he apparently reveled in), and transformed into Comstock (from green soldier to Prophet to Big-influence Government-man Comstock to Insta City Builder). When exactly in there did he meet the Luteces, even just to suddenly get old enough to shave ? Then Taxes paid for Columbia ? Sorry, the US Government didn't work that way THEN - Career politicos and Rich Industrialists (who of anybody only could have funded anything like that) would have pushed Comstock out and taken over an otherwise meagerly-funded Project (and pocketed/redirected alot of the money). That all, besides the fact that there actually was an Economic Depression going on in the United States at that time (1893). So NO, there would be NO taxpayer money to build Columbia (local money funded the 'White City' not Federal Tax Dollars. Now that is assuming whatever time the plot amazingly can shoe-horn in the Luteces showing Comstock their Floaty Toys to be able to developing/engineer ALL the technologies to Successfully Lift a whole 'City' Safely (done in time for the Exposition - including BUILDING THE FRICKEN THING). (( '' Do game writers serious think things in the Real World get done with just a Wave of the Hand ? -- REMEMBER -- "Those who can't, write computer games ..." '' )) --- --- --- '''Writer Create Conflicts in The Multiverse : "Due to this, the Rapture that depended on Columbia's combined research developments would, logically speaking also cease to exist, or at the very least end up developing in an entirely different way due to the lack of Fink & Suchong's combined efforts. The Rapture from the original BioShock would be the self-sustaining one where Columbia never existed (OUR RAPTURE). A good point ( really part of the 'Rapture' is "Prime" kerfluffle that Levine retroactively started ). So *Infinite* also means (in at least one 'reality') that Suchong is an artificially intelligent Epstein the Swami machine (or insert something equally strange), and Rapture is actually a donut floating in a cup of coffee in some universe populated by microbes ... " No Gods or Kings - Only MICROBES!!!!" SMART Science Fiction authors long ago learned to shy away from the whole 'infinite universe' mess ... --- --- --- "Good" Booker actually really isn't much better than Comstock (indian killer, professional thug, depraved guy who sold his own daughter, an alcoholic, a chronically losing gambler, and general wastrel). Are we asked to role-play this bad/evil man, and have him (us) act contrary to his whole life ? Or is he just one of those "Misunderstood" characters -- contrary to everything we know about him ??? He doesn't know that Elizabeth is his daughter ... (Neat for the game might have been some sequences where you played Comstock, and have him play his role as a Dr Evil type - maybe with a warped visual view like we got with the Little Sister Vision in BS2 ... Hmm, save that idea for the MMORPG Infinite Redo). "The lack of a true name for Subject Delta was a deliberate choice by the game developers. They felt that giving him a name would only add more distance between the Player and the experience of being the character." Unfortunately maybe they didn't stick to that for Infinite BS, when we are forced to play a character who is quite despicable (and ARE maneuvered into being a veritable KIDNAPPER/MASS MURDERER for some reason). --- --- --- How About A Good Plot : Seriously, a 'good' plot idea would have been FINK being shown as the REAL power in Columbia ... and Comstock just a deluded/half-insane puppet for Fink to manipulate. ((Now THAT's good Plot writing ... complex undercurrents of motives and such - Oh That's Right, this is just a Pop-a-mole shooter game '' using a previously successful branding to CON the 'marks' ... My Bad. '' )) '' --- --- --- '''Might as Well Have Giant Statues of Juggalos (From the Future, See ...) : ' Founding Fathers made into gods, by someone who said he really didn't know much about religion (which maybe explains all this Faux-religion BS ?). Doesn't know much about History, doesn't know American Society, or Engineering or Science apparently, shown by what he compares to American Exceptional-ism, which the game's writers patted themselves on the back for in the promotional interviews. BS. --- --- --- Gearz - Grasping At Straws - Regurgitation Station Fated for Infinite BS ' : EXAMPLE - ' GEARZ "Winter Shield" (It is used in the "Shirt" slot) Effect: Jumping on or off Sky-Lines or Freight Hooks grants brief invulnerability . ''' Yeah, clothing does that for you sometimes ... Too many shiny sequins blinds your opponents ??? Just sad that they came up with ideas like this to attempt to clone stuff from the previous (successful branding) BioShock games , and that things like this really didn't make all that much sense in the new game's setting/implementation. Apparently little effort was made to come up with something new or improved or coordinated or logical. 1) That gear's "Winter" is a reference to what exactly ??? Winter freezes shit out ?? (Seriously, couldn't come up with a better name ?? "VEST OF QUANTUM SOLITUDE !!!!") 2) "Invulnerability" ? Why should the Player need to have this 'briefly' ??? WHY ? To prevent the NPC Opponents from using those COMMONLY available (in Vending Machines) "Vigors" like Bucking Bronco/ Possession/ Undertow on YOU, and constantly blowing Booker off the side of Columbia, to fall quickly to his death ?????? Amazing that Booker needs ANY "invulnerability" when the opponents were made so tactically lame/limited/pop-a-mole-ish. 3) A "Shirt" does this ?? Imagine what a 'Smokers Pipe "slot"' might have held in the game ... "Smoke Screen" allows you to retreat ... Medical Marijuana Heals you !!! A Plus +3 attribute in puzzle solving - "Lemme take a smoke and contemplate this situation awhile ..." - '''And Those Freight Hooks : Really dim 'magic' jump targets (placed to limit Players movement within the pretend 3D/actually 2D terrain environment) ((**STUPIDLY** Worse was seeing them retrofitted into Rapture in BaSx)) Skylines ? : Boy, What BS this game degenerated into - Patheticosity after their game element degenerated (compared to what was promised/shown in those Trailers that actually looked interesting ...). The use in the game was so hamstrung -- reduced to a Running-In-a-Big-Circle arena battle lameness. --- --- --- Quantum TimeTravel The game's 'Merging' universes (the nosebleed bullshit) also is not any part of Quantum Theory (universes are NOT quantum objects, so all the crap about them collapsing together is all fantasy as well. Likewise PEOPLE are NOT (and cannot be) quantum objects -- a facts which runs contrary to the game, which obviously has misused almost every aspect of what they talk/claim to be 'quantum' anything. --- --- --- Attempting Some Logic Just For Amusement ''' : How far sideways (however THAT works) do you have to go 'dimensionally' to find an exact duplicate which is 50 years out of sync ? Consider the original theory with the universe splitting every time a Quark flips the other way ... Infinitely distant ?? But Elizabeth became like a 'god' so it was "easy" ... This 'god power' '''shit is just one more stupid lame creation forced down the Player's throat, when the writers imagination failed them, and the science they claim to use just doesn't work for the plot they wanted. "Deus Ex Machina" - Sudden intervention via mysterious metaphysics, used to get a storyteller out of a corner they wrote themselves into. (( '' Consider that it is so much simpler story-wise for this whole pack of illogical shit to be in Booker's or Elizabeth's head (or some guy named 'Fred' in that 'Columbia' Mental Asylum .................... '' )) ---- ---- ---- WE CAN DO MUCH BETTER : Tear Travel "Manufactures New Memories" (that Nosebleedy Fun) ' : Now for Booker-Comstock-Booker PI. I think I need an abbreviation :\ * NAATDQP "Nothing At All To Do With Quantum Physics" * BS... * JMSUFTP "Just Making Shit Up For The Plot" * HPWMS "Harry Potter Was More Scientific" * SOGBFC "Selling Out the Genre Brand for Cash" ??? IT MIGHT have been ALOT more interesting if Rapture-Booker REMEMBERED ALL (but that conflicts with the Infinite:BS fantasy-crutch-land which they have imported him from). Even better would have been him in BaS1 remembering Elizabeth trying to drown him at that last 'Baptism', and showing how he escaped, and now with internal thoughts (you hear his thoughts in-game) of him planning to kill Elizabeth before she kills him again (and you make decisions along the way working towards that goal --- "Oh lookee, isn't that a tool that is used for Tran-Orbital Lobotomies ?? *Pockets It* YES, That might come in reeeeal handy ..." -- ''You forget, Comstock you see was amateur Brain Surgeon, too (like so many of these BS characters) '') The Alien looked like her Father ... - Oops wrong bad movie. (But then it might've been a better plot for Infinite BS ...) Heh, with this anti-gravity stuff, we could have had socially 'relevant' Racism on the Moon (or on Phobos like in DOOM) ... When Booker was 'drowned', all this Columbia stuff and 'Elizabeth the ''god ' stuff should have ended/never existed ? '''No ? (So what really was achieved at all ??? ) If this reality (dimension) didn't end/cease to exist so that an Elizabeth (who likewise should have ceased to exist) can 'seek it out', how many others (as in an INFINITE number) also still continue to exist -- AND ARE NOW WORSE because of what she did ??? (( '' Don't whine at me for questioning the whole Infinite BS 'logic' for it being ridiculously Faulty and Inconsistent (logically incapable of extending into this Rapture placed DLC). '' )) Inconsistency/Contradiction is bad when you are allegedly trying (AND over-hyping it ardently in promotional materials) to base the Story-World on commonly KNOWN Science principles/ideas/concepts, OR attempting to have some Real World 'normal' things (circa 1900) serve as a foil against which the game's new weird stuff is seen (( '' Kennyboi's WHOLE warped "America was Evil" strawman faux-presentation '' )). ---- JustVisiting.jpg Scatalogical101.jpg Hypoxia.jpg|Reality About Altitude Altitwarn.jpg|More Reality about altitude effects ---- ' "PROVISIONS" Barrels with Everything Except Provisions In Them ... ' : Rather odd to be labeled such. (( '' Possibly so they didn't have to customize them with some likely names ?? )) The Generic Container in Columbia. Though why they are everywhere in 'normal' locations ?? (For most of the game, Columbia ISN'T in some long-time state of Chaos/Disruption where things have been well-pilfered). Particularly strange to be found in those 'genteel' sections of Columbia, which are intrusive/an eyesore/a sign of Squalor, which is quite out of place (The serfs were there to manhandle them out from some storage spot when actually needed, no ? They left them there ?? Oh My, 20 lashes for willful negligence then. The Promenades MUST be kept pretty for the Masters.) I think the game makers had enough different object as alternates so they did NOT have to have these "PROVISIONS" barrels in so many places. Barrels were also on their way out by that time, replaced by boxes, but perhaps it didn't look 'old timey' enough for the 'artists' ??. Funny would have been : Finding a Fink Warehouse with a large area stacked from floor to ceiling with these 'PROVISIONS' containers (even better if you could 'bin dive' them all). Barrels were used for bulk items, and could be rolled (for heavy products being manually moved a short distance, or up a pair of wooden beams serving as a ramp into a wagon, or loaded with crane&net onto larger conveyances). --- --- --- '''Why did Comstock (or his heir Elizabeth) want to destroy New York (and others below) ? : ' Because it is the epitome of the sinful and impure America that Comstock says has been ruined/degenerated from what the venerated Founding Fathers wanted to build. BUT Why did Columbia wait so long?? Sorry, but whatever Tears Elizabeth conjures up wont do much against nuclear tipped missiles striking and obliterating Columbia. Heck, with the people below figuring out what the Luteces created and developing the technology even faster, it might simply be a case of US Space Marines coming after and boarding Columbia and tossing Elizabeth into a null-void chamber where she will be powerless and no longer able to meddle with the inter-dimensions ... (They will do Lobotomies with LASERS!!! No muss, no fuss, no mess. Sliced and Diced as neat as you please.) --- --- --- Choiceless Ending : You aren't given a chance to decide : K Kill this crazy bitch trying to drown me (shoot her with your army revolver) D Drown R Run away and take whatever course you were gonna take HERE in this dimension/universe/whatever (Its obviously not predetermined, or this drowning thing would be futile, no ?) So Elizabeth's solution is to go back to some alternate dimension and drown some other Booker before he can do anything (BTW, not even sure if this was an indian-slaughtering Booker). It doesn't help (or hurt) all the OTHER *INFINITE* Bookers, who go on their ways undisturbed. Elizabeth could kill Bookers forever (til doomsday) and NEVER 'fix' even a smattering of them all. So is it really just all about REVENGE then (just makes her FEEL better ...) ? Perhaps THIS Booker was on a different path and was gonna cure Cancer or somesuch - well that ain't gonna happen now is it ??? Arrogant delusional Elizabeth who murderously decides the fates of others (most insane asylum patients are less crazy). Such an illogical game universe we have in this game. Hacked together as their deadline(s) approached, was it ? Doesn't even fit the Bullshit pseudo-science they try to use in the rest of the game (NOWHERE in Quantum Physics are 'do overs' mentioned.) BTW Levine - PEOPLE are not Quantum Objects subject to simple quantum physics. If your 'expert' consultant ever told you that, then it was ignored, wasn't it ?? --- --- --- Bank of the Prophet ??? Profit ??? ''' : Money in 'Eden' ? Serving mammon is hardly conducive to being holy.. This "Bank" thing is a bit half-arsed (as in ALOT-HALF-ASSED) for a so called Holy City to require money (at least it should have been 'Prayer Beads' or 'Prophet Nodules" or somesuch equivalent). Some people there might have that feeling and throw their money in the trash (explaining THAT...), but most you find is still looted from normal places (and heathen jewelry and bricks of gold). Of course Levine & Co have to continue their task of putting down of religion (as its a fundamental of American culture and society, so it therefore MUST be "evil". But Ken, if you are going to extrapolate the whole 'holy' thing, at least do it right. You can still have slaughter-fest gunbattles even in a moneyless society (so it won't ruin that '''singularly important game element). --- --- --- That Weird Infinite BS Loot System : * Why are there Hot Dogs and crap stuffed into boxes and flower pots? Such Random loot in the first two games might make sense being Splicer stashes, but this is literally just dumpster-diving for the Player. * Even though there are normal people everywhere, it is okay for the Player to just loot every container, including PEOPLE'S PURSES, without any reaction whatsoever ? That much touted 'scripting' AI was alot of bosh. * Pistol ammo inside a barrel of fireworks? YES, When storing ammunition, I like to make sure the bullets are right next to the explosives - it's safer that way. Lets please have logical places for things so when you are short you can find what you need in LIKELY places. Columbia is a normal place, not a picked over ruin like Rapture was. (( '' OOPS if no Manic Magpie searching every container - that would trim a whole hour off the game play-time - it was short enough as it was. '' )) * Money tossed in the trash. Are these Offerings to the Founding Idol Gods ?? No live children like they offered in flaming death to Baal ? (Who says human sacrifice and cannibalism DOESN'T take place in some corner of this flying insane asylum ? Some 'clever' frightful 'arty' scene Tableaus were missed-out-on there.) * Whole handy stockpiles exist whereever Elizabeth keeps 'gating' Stuff In From (but only during large gun battles). Wouldn't it be semi-intelligent game design to RANDOMIZE them (which ones and where), SO that you (the cattle-like Player) might have to think a little to plan a strategy. You might then be forced to use some different Weapons/Gearz/Tactics/Magic-potions, INSTEAD of always using the same things in those repetitive battle arena situations ???? --- --- --- No Nickelodeons In Columbia ? : A Nickelodeon was a Small Storefront establishment, with a sitdown audience usually showing bootleg/small-studio (silent) films in towns and cities (it was the latest tech fad circa 1912). In Columbia, these would be perfect to show The Prophet's Propaganda (A big screen has more impact than those weirdly misapplied Kinetoscopes seen in Infinite BS to propagate official propaganda.) Someone ad hoc filming (ex- for some photojournalist - newsreel) could have been seen in the Player's 'Tour' (in the initial non-weaponized segment of the game). The 'Stoning' of the Miscegenators at the Columbia Faire would have been a likely spot for such 'public interest' filming activity (the event being recorded for future 'educational' use) -- and HAVING that filming catching Booker Slaughtering people - and have THAT footage viewed later in the game like a Newsreel ("False Shepard Massacres Crowd !!!") -- THAT might have been interesting (and imaginative for the game). --- --- --- ' UTILITIES - An Obvious Missing Thing For A Real City ' : Columbia - We never are shown where any of the 'Power' (electricity/steam/etc..) for all these modern wonders came from (apparently its all just more Magic ?) Power plants belching appalling amounts of smoke (the hallmark of cities at that time) need to burn ALOT of Fuel (oops, another thing that apparently would have to be obtained by 'Magic'). Transport from the ground ?? A Great story missing of : How Columbia worked to make itself continue to exist (It became too centered on the magic Quantumz Bullshit and Faux-history, to provide some nice explanatory hints about 'behind the scenes'). Even huge Fink Manufacturing has mere wisps of smoke (its a separate issue of why Columbia needs so large an industry ...) Unfortunately, 'prop' Columbia never seemed like a real town, where people could live. (More a fancy over-elaborated Cardboard Cutout, a 'Pretty' Caricature, a Facade/False Front, a Stage Setting, ad-nauseum ... all things with no proper depth). Enough of the place was just 'seen from a distance, but it all was the same candy coated crap (even the farcical shantytown section looked too 'Coney Island'). You just walk through, hear a few more mannequin's banter, do another firefight, and move on. It didn't have the broad aspect Rapture had. --- --- --- Real Cities Have Scale/Size - Its What They Are : Looking at old maps, its made plain that one typical city block of LA of that era (and not the most densly packed city) contained more businesses/shops than most/all of Columbia put-together. You should Discount that bizarre huge Fink Mfg complex, which does not seem to have much need to exist, nor the contrived workforce population to have it operate, nor its having any apparent method to supply it, nor the customers to send any large mass-produced mass of products to. Things in the real world are large for a reason. No reason is shown for much of what they say Columbia is supposed to be. - We should ignore freakishly large monstrosities like Monument Island, which is strangely built and far too large for its function, and was unlikely to (outside Fantasy) ever get its construction funded (nor to ever be built). Huge Piles of Money have to exist to pay for such EXPENSIVE extravagance IN Fantasy, money grows on trees. The writers show no reason that any such money could exist (Columbia in any case is an oversized Village). Also, With what little population all of Columbia has, what's is seen of the City would be unlikely to get built for decades. It takes WORK, something many writers may have no real concept of. Remember that the (REAL) Statue of Liberty google Statue of Liberty almost didn't historically happen because nobody wanted to pay for its rather simple 150 foot masonary pedestal (In 1885 the pedestals had to funded by the private donations from the whole nation when politicians wouldn't budget its building using US Tax dollars). That is the REAL environment in the REAL USABad Fiction can so easily ignore/avoid Reality. It is quite easy to create such fantasy objects for a game (merely drawn to have them look impressive) without having to justify how all of it possibly could exist. Making it believable is far harder. If you want to have VISION, then WHY not have that whole random clutter of a city BE one HUGE ANGEL shaped thing (which you only realize late in a scene when the mist/clouds finally clear ... etc...). But OOPs, the Players got stuck with writers of mediocre Vision. --- --- --- Booker DeWitt - A Reprehensible Human WITH OR WITHOUT Any 'Baptism' ''' : * A Native-Indian Murdering soldier, who went past orders to 'show off' in killing and multilating corpses of his Indian victims because of his Low Self Esteem, and low moral character. * A Murderous Thug (after the US Army he worked as a Pinkerton 'strike breaker', which BTW has little to do with 'detective' work). * A chronic drunk wastrel, and chronic bad gambler. * A man who SOLD his own daughter (no matter that he changed his mind afterwards). * A man willing to kidnap someone for money (and kill people to do it) * Becomes a mass-murderer in Columbia * Allows himself to be used and murdered by a crazy girl, pathetic. * As Comstock, A Charlatan/swindler and fraud and self-serving demagogue * A bigotted/racist slaver and subjugator (did Booker/Comstock self-hate his own lowly upbringing ?) * A murderer (same for characters throughout the story, including Elizabeth) '''THIS is the person which Levine has YOU (as the Player) be. REDEMPTION ? What Redemption ? What horrors lie in store after the last scene of the game ? (AND is it not possible THAT is the Scene just before the 'Knock on the Door' by the Luteces yet AGAIN ???) --- --- --- How Columbia's Economy Musta Worked (HOW THEY GOT THEIR STUFF- YEP, MAGIC, SURE 'NUF) ''' : For Technology : Characters (ex- Fink) seeing something (as in through Tears, which is the writer's game premise) is '''NOT the same as Understanding. And THAT further does NOT equate with the Ability to build/construct what was seen, AND neither does it equate to the ablility to Manufacture the advanced/anachronistic products. Gigantic Factories (there in the story mainly to facilitate an environment of Class Warfare in the games setting) don't quite work without supplies/raw materials. Why (let alone how) they can even exist there, when all the required materials are apparently created out of thin air, and huge masses of product, which MUST be being made in those mosntrous factories, goes TO WHO KNOWS WHERE. It is just more contrived Fantasy nonsense props created to force a desired theme setting. BTW, Monstrous Factories also makes little sense existing in any 'New Eden'. The Game Concept of the inhabitants possessing Amazing Technical Prowess is Bullshit-Cubed : P'erpetrated by the ignorant/careless game writers, '''I'gnored by the Fanbois, 'A'ccepted by the reality-deficient. Most of the typical 'J'aded Players simply '''DONT CARE. B'''ad explanations are wasted on them all. Those writers should NOT be insisting this stuff is anything related to the Real World (like the other two BioShocks at least were) -- Not insisting that they are allegorical in any plausible way. --- --- --- '''Infinite Redundency and Futility : Simple (or Not) answer is Schrödinger's cat ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat ). Actually it isn't, AND at the same time it is ... The whole story line is based on some fanciful 'multiverse' theory, which leads to endless confusion about anything being real or permanent or even existing. An Elizabeth (out of an apparently infinite number of them) for whatever reason can skip between realities and take a Booker (one out of an apparently infinite number of them) with her. Worlds can be visited - one out of an infinite number of them.... Columbia -- one out of an infinite number of THEM ... (good, bad and ugly). Every possible combination of events exist simultaneously (supposedly according to that 'theory' they use for the game). So if one Elizabeth in one reality gets dirt-napped prematurely, there are (will always be) all the others that already are happening previously/now/in-the-future (BTW - a clown exploded near her in at least one dimension - possibly THAT event is the highest probability for her demise - Ken Levine can record THAT clown voice too), and others die much-much later (from more all-but-certain invasions from the Clown Universe, and anything else you care to name -- causing whatever creepy fun you can think of). In other universes/existences/dimensions/timelines she isn't quite the same person, and yet in more others there never is a Comstock/Columbia/Luteces/fire-having-been-invented, and you arrive at 'Elizabeth' some other infinitely-spawned ways (maybe some friendly Cat Aliens take you there). - SO, Every possible thing from any possible sequence of events exists simultaneously (according to the 'theory'). Ex - Lizzy the Drunken Whore has to go 'Retrieve the Boy, and Pay off Your Debts". - SO Elizabeth CANNOT possibly kill EVERY Booker/Comstock, or their standins, because there will always be an infinite supply even if an infinite number of her attempt it. Every tiniest action SHE takes, MORE universes split off in an ever expanding mass of Bookers. Confusing ? Yep. Anything ever really achieved ? Nope. It (whatever) all has happened, will always happen. Makes you wonder what we could have had for the game if they hadn't gone down this rabbit hole. --- --- --- X Percent of People Of That Era Were Still Rural : 1900 - fewer people lived in apartments and many wouldn't know how to live in one (were used to and preferred a house). Tenement dwellers don't seem to be the type of people who would want to live in Columbia (( '' Wowza. Aye, Yes Lets Be Movin To A Floatin' Slum, Begorrah !!! '' )). Many of Columbia's inhabitants being Reactionaries (rather severely warped/contrived ones, done 'for effect' in the game for the crazy story), you would think THEY would want HOUSES to live in (something NOT resembling a "Den of Evil/Sin" Cityscape). Columbia is all Floatyshit™ Fantasy, so there is no reason to NOT have lots of old style houses, no ?? A jumbled 3D jungle gym of them might have been imaginative for a floating city dotcha think ? (What's a few more stairs to climb - there are already a ridiculous number of them to inconvenience everyone --- AND the inhabitants all have Quantum powered wings to take care of that, no ?). pix oldhouse.jpg (note- THIS old house here WAS in a large city). --- --- --- Battleship Bay 'Arcade' With Rows of Duke & Dimwit 'Play' Viewers ''': Seriously, that arcade needed a 'claw' game where you try to grab a Statue of a Founding Father, or a Bullet, or a Pack of Smokes (or a Songbird Figurine), Or a Ticket for a free "toss" at the next 'Fair' ... Those old (real world ) arcades had DOZENS of different games/Players/viewers. They went to the trouble of having THIS prop in the game, but then didn't even re-skin the generic machine (they used/repeated it over and over). We coulda had some better ADDITIONAL unique presentations (different lesson/parable/allegory name). Such a Wasted Idea. --- --- --- '''1893-1912 Columbia ANACHRONISM ISSUE : Sesession July 6 1902 (After Peking Attack and US Government saying "WTF ?") Wow, almost 20 years (minus the time the US Government controlled the original 'Show City', while it toured the less-civilized parts of the World, and other places like France). The USA (and World) changed alot in that length of time. Meanwhile Columbia was largely cut off from those changes (US Government wouldn't pay upto 1902, and after that Comstock turned it into a backward armpit-like Podunkville. Largely Isolated after 1902 - So really the place should reflect that date for fashions, etc ... (Cut off from the devil-spawned 'fashions' of the damned 'those below'). --- --- --- --- --- . .